Paul Newman used to be just a movie star to me. I had seen his face on salad dressing and spaghetti sauce on his Newman's Own products many times while perusing the aisles of the grocery store. Now, that face means a lot more to me. All of the profits from Newman's Own items go to charity, and one of those charities is The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps for children suffering from cancer, leukemia, and other serious blood diseases.
My cousin's 4-year-old son has cancer and was able to spend a weekend at the camp with his mom, dad and baby sister. They had a wonderful time, and it was a much-needed diversion. You can learn more about this special charity at http://www.holeinthewallgang.org. It's been 20 years since Paul Newman and his friend, A. E. Hotchner, created Newman's Own, and over $125 million has been given to charity. Thank you, Paul Newman!
David and I returned from a day at the Brimfield (Massachusetts) flea market very tired and very happy. We had a chance to meet up with several colleagues (some of whom we had never met in person).
The weather overall was bad for the six-day show, but we went on Friday, which was one of the nicest days. It truly makes me appreciate dealers who go on the road to bring collectibles to the public. As time-consuming as selling online is, at least we don't have to worry about wind and rain except when we’re taking packages to the post office.
Speaking of the post office, the USPS is no longer directly selling undeliverable mail on eBay. David did some research and found out the full story. It's a fascinating look at how a very large organization is testing various approaches to liquidating excess (or unwanted) inventory.
Two weeks ago, we published the results of our second annual Collectibles Price Index showing that prices of collectibles on eBay had dropped 11% since 2001. The items in the index represent a cross-section of collectibles and had experienced a 25% drop in price from 2000 to 2001. We also found was that the sell-through rate had plummeted from 72% in 2000 to 55% in 2002.
TIAS published an independent report several days later, showing that prices of antiques and collectibles posted by their merchants on eBay had decreased 17% from last year. This news was obviously important to trade journals and made the front page of Antique Week. The mainstream media, however, did not feel that this information was newsworthy, despite the fact that these reports were mentioned in many publications last year, including the Wall Street Journal. I wonder if antiques and collectibles business issues are "yesterday's news" with the media, which is now more interested in eBay's mergers and acquisitions than they are with eroding sales margins of eBay antiques and collectibles merchants.
Please feel free to forward this newsletter in its entirety to friends and colleagues. We also have an "Email This Story" feature on our Web site. At the bottom of each article, there is a link that allows you to send the story to a friend!
Thanks for subscribing to AuctionBytes-Update. And thanks to our current sponsors for making this FREE newsletter possible: Craters & Freighters (to help with special shipping needs), Vision One (wholesale resources), Bidfields (a new auction site), AuctionSniper (auction sniping tools) and Tias.com (an online antiques mall). You can find links to sponsors at the end of each newsletter.
Ina Steiner is Editor of AuctionBytes.com and author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). She has a background in marketing and research in the high-tech and publishing fields. If you have story ideas, comments or questions, send them to ina@auctionbytes.com.
